Thread by @bradheath

NEW: Federal prosecutors' decision to end an investigation into hush money payments to women claiming affairs with Donald Trump relied at least in part on longstanding Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime.

usatoday.com/story/news/pol…

Prosecutors told a judge Monday that they had "effectively concluded" their investigation of efforts to silence two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump, but did not explain their reasons for doing so. Now we have at least part of the answer.

DOJ had tied Trump pretty closely to the illegal hush-payments. It alleged that they were made at his direction. And earlier today, it revealed that the FBI knew he participated in phone calls with aides when the scheme was hatched. usatoday.com/story/news/pol…

It isn't clear whether prosecutors in New York thought they had sufficient evidence to conclude that Trump committed a crime, or even that they tried to make that determination. Their decision was based at least in part on the rule that a president can't be charged with a crime.

Here's the opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel: "A sitting President is constitutionally immune from indictment and criminal prosecution." It hasn't been tested in court, but it binds federal prosecutors.

justice.gov/sites/default/…

If this feels like a Muellerish ending, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

When the special counsel investigation ended, DOJ laid out its evidence and its reasoning -- satisfying or unsatisfying as it may be -- in hundreds of pages of detail.

When the campaign finance probe of President Trump and his associates ended, we got this:

Here's the story, from @bykevinj and @kristinegWP: usatoday.com/story/news/pol…